English Dub Review: Fruits Basket “Sure Thing”

Overview (Spoilers Below)

It’s back to school for Tohru and the rest, now that summer break is a done deal. But of course with Yuki’s new job as Student Council President, he seeks to better himself by learning to get along with other people outside his comfort zone for better or worse…


Our Take

On the plus side, while this did feel like a filler episode, I do like how this season so far has balanced both Kyo and Yuki developments quite well, almost as a back and forth with the recent episodes. This time around Yuki starting to be more accepting of others, and even bonding with someone apart from Honda, which is honestly a big step for him. In a weird way this almost reminds me of an older interview with the South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone about “learning to live with other people” because while Yuki lives with family members and has the most extreme problems imaginable, He’s still considered popular amongst his peers.

To me, the real issue is that Yuki’s popularity within the school mostly stems from his looks and people tend to not care about the person inside and only the outside because they’re failing to see him as a person beyond that. And based on observation, Yuki doesn’t even know he has a fan club within the school about him made up of young girls who blindly see Tohru as a threat to their unobtainable dreams of being with him and yet the fangirls themselves rarely approach him or try to understand him as a person. It’s infuriating.

As someone who’s experienced the harshness of high school like most people have, I can vouch that this Dub captures the youthful angst of Yuki’s moments with these characters properly. And you can make the argument that The student council seems to be filled with different people outside of Yuki’s family come from different backgrounds and walks of life. Realistically, you can’t expect school council members who are at this point complete strangers who are required to share the same space together to instantly get along unless they find some sort of common ground, but I think that’s the point. I know this mercifully won’t be the complete focus of the main story, but the only character who seems to stand out the most within the council it’s Manabe whom Yuki seems to interact with and often come to blows with the most while they both project their personal issues. Yuki feeling like he can’t get close to people (for obvious and personal reasons) and Manabe not being able to understand anyone. They each have inner pain and jealousy towards the other. Which speaks to a lot of people and how they feel towards those around them. We don’t often see our own strengths just others. But, Yuki remarking at the end about how they can better understand they can grow closer was at least a noble sentiment to end it with.